Mendon-Upton superintendent to serve on advisory board

Thursday

Jan 9, 2014 at 6:01 AM

By Mike GleasonDaily News Staff

Mendon-Upton Regional School District Superintendent Joseph Maruszczak has been chosen to provide feedback to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, he announced this week.Maruszczak, speaking at Monday's School Committee meeting, said the state superintendent's association had asked him to serve on an advisory council to the department."All the districts in the commonwealth are dealing with a multitude of initiatives, from the implementation of the common-core curriculum to the brand-new PARCC assessment to a new educator evaluation system," he said. "It's a really overwhelming list of initiatives."Maruszczak said the group would be speaking with the state's education commissioner, Mitchell Chester, about how to best apply those initiatives to districts."It's really about having reasonable expectations and timelines for these initiatives," he said.Maruszczak told the committee that he would keep them apprised of the group's progress in his regular reports."To the commissioner's credit, there have been some alterations to the very aggressive timelines," he said, adding that certain measures have been delayed - like surveys and district evaluation tools - as a result of on-the-ground feedback.Maruszczak said it was not so much the content of these initiatives as the time allotted to implement them that was the issue."Inherently, a lot of these ideas are good ideas but, like anything else, the devil is in the details," he said. "You really have to be thoughtful and deliberate, and the thought is to put forward realistic benchmarks and timelines."Mike Gleason can be reached at 508-634-7546 or mgleason@wickedlocal.com. For news throughout the day, follow him on Twitter @MGleason_MDN.